Other Half
by NotLaura
Summary: Two kisses to the forehead and only two lives left.
1. Prologue

_There's a barn on the edge of Alexandria._

 _You can see it from your window, balancing on the edge of a bridge that extends from the walls of the town. A white cross is painted on the doors and someone indistinct stands on the other side of the chain link fences, baby formula and a ragged doll clutched in their arms._

 _You walk towards it, a trail of pecans and the smell of cigarettes and leather leading you down train tracks. There's a countdown clock ticking in the sky and the smoke around you isn't white yet. In your ears, the dull beeping of medical equipment mixes with a promise: Sanctuary. Community._

 _A prison bus full of cherokee roses follows you as you break into a run._

 _Don't look at them._

 _The answers are behind the doors, you know they have to be._

 _But the barn isn't getting any closer and the sounds of gunfire and laughter are taking over as you feel ghostly arms try and close around you. For a moment there's nothing but air that feels like home and safe and a thumb that strokes the back of your hand. Two kisses to the forehead and only two lives left._

 _A broken watch crunches under your foot and your knees buckle just steps from the doors. There are angels face down all over the ground, their wings tattered against the charred blackness of their flesh and you look up as a flare shoots into the sky._

 _Just hold on._

 _Everything aches but you force yourself the last few feet and when the doors of the barn suddenly burst open he's staring down at you, knife raised and adrenaline pumping._

 _The blue of his eyes is like drowning as he reaches out to touch your face._


	2. I

Summer in Virginia feels hotter than Georgia.

It's probably in her head, Carol knows. Their first winter in Alexandria brought more snow and wind than she'd ever seen before. She'd spent her evenings knitting scarves and hats, unravelling the yarn from sweaters deemed unwearable and repurposing them into protection from the harsh weather. It wasn't the fluffy snowfall that she'd dreamed of as a little girl, rather a wet slush that clung to her ankles and hid patches of ice underneath.

Winter had given way to a spring that was much too wet and far too mild for her tastes, but with the heat of summer beating down on them again Carol finds herself wishing for the days of wearing a light jacket.

She wishes for a lot of things.

* * *

The first snow is a novelty

She sits in the living room, a blanket in her lap and a book she isn't reading laying open on her knee. It's too early for anyone else, the darkness of the night only starting to give way to the hazy grey of a winter morning. Unlike the others, warm in their beds, Carol hasn't quite adjusted to a less vigilant life. She still wakes up wondering if it's her turn for watch, or why she can't hear the breathing patterns of her family laid out beside her. Some nights, she shakes away those fears, tucks back into the soft white and yellow duvet that adorns her bed and closes her eyes. Most of the time she just gets up, accepting the strange hours that start her day.

She hasn't bothered making coffee yet, there's hours before Rick or Michonne amble downstairs for work and no one else in the house drinks it. In a while, she'll don her disguise and set about taking care of everything, but here, in the earliest hours of the day, she's just Carol.

She's seen snow before, despite spending her life in Georgia. A Christmas trip to Kentucky to visit her aunt, when she was just a teenager, and the few occasions when the rain froze over in Atlanta. These leave her unprepared for the fat, wet flakes that started falling lazily from the clouds a little while after she'd made her way downstairs.

Briefly, she considers waking Carl. He'd tried to hide his excitement behind teenage apathy when Aaron had promised them an impending start of winter weather, but Carol knows his frown was a little too forced, had seen the way he'd glanced at Enid before reacting. He's trying to impress her, trying to wear the mantle of a man while the boy inside of him wants more of the life he's been denied.

Carol hopes he makes a snowman, even if it's too small to share.

A shuffle of feet choreographed to alert her and she turns her head, knowing who she'll see before moving.

The only evidence that Daryl's fresh from sleep is his socked feet, he doesn't walk around the house in track pants like Rick does and he's pulled a fresh button down shirt over the green t-shirt he'd worn to sleep. His jeans are loose, but he looks as alert as ever as he stops at the arm of the couch, following her gaze out the window.

They don't greet each other, there's no small talk required as Carol closes the book and gives up the illusion of doing anything but watching the snow. Another time, she would have invited him under her blanket, teased about sharing body heat and watched the flush creep up his neck. She doesn't have that kind of levity in her limbs anymore, she can't play pretend and brush off something that means so much more than a joke and a flirt. Instead, she and Daryl merely exist together, on a quiet winter morning as a dusting of snow coats Alexandria.

It's enough.

* * *

"Ugh, this tastes like rotten cough syrup!" Eric pushes away the wine glass with an exaggerated grimace. "The cheap stuff wasn't meant to be preserved."

Carol raises her eyebrows, holding her untouched drink and wishing the hint of a smile she feels somewhere deep inside would make it's way to her face.

"The expensive stuff wasn't much better, though." His facial theatrics drop away instantly, raw pain in his eyes that a blind man couldn't miss. "I never told him, but I was pretty much talking out of my ass every time I played sommelier."

"I've never much cared for it, either," Carol agrees, setting her glass on the table beside the serving of rabbit casserole she's barely touched. "I'll lift some cans from Abraham's stash, next time. Skunky beer is better than boxed cough syrup, any day."

Her diversion is unsuccessful, and Eric's broken the unspoken rule of their weekly dinners for two: don't mention them.

"It's strange," he's got a far off look in his eyes that makes Carol's chest tighten with what's coming. "We told each other everything important. Our values, our beliefs, our fears… but I never told him that I really don't like wine."

She doesn't say anything, knows it won't matter if she had the words or not. She's an imposter at this table, sitting in a seat that belongs to a man she'd not made an effort to get to know. Silently, she pushes her casserole around her plate before bringing a small bite to her mouth.

The rabbit's meat had been mangled by an improperly set snare, half the animal useless to her and the entire recipe is off balance by the lack of protein.

Eric is a million miles away and the locks around Carol's heart shake from the effort of keeping her pain inside.

* * *

At first, nobody thinks anything of it.

Schedules for recruiting runs are tentative, at best. There's a vague idea of when they expect to return, but it's nothing to set your watch by. The outside world is unpredictable, with anything from walkers to weather to other survivors putting a wrench in even the most detailed of plans. It's not unheard of for them to return days after they'd planned, and they always take more supplies than their plans call for.

In case they're gone longer. In case they find other mouths to feed. In case they lose the car or the bike or one of their packs.

It isn't until more than a week has gone by that something starts to feel unsettled.

They change supply runs to head in the direction the recruiters were headed. The work crew takes a day off to scout for evidence of where they might be. Rick climbs the watchtower to sit with Sasha in the evenings, his gaze trained to the gates and his jaw tense.

* * *

Two weeks after Aaron and Daryl were supposed to return, a search party is formed.

There's more volunteers to go than the safe zone can spare, and in the end it's decided that Glenn, Michonne and Morgan will be the ones to go. Carol wants to volunteer, wants to pick up her rifle and follow the trail she knows must be out there but Rick shuts her down with a firm shake of his head, a look that says she needs to think about appearances, even now.

She takes the first casserole to Eric, that night.


	3. II

"I'm sure they just got off course to avoid something."

There's such certainty to Maggie's declaration, and Carol wishes she could take that thread from her friend's voice and weave it into her own thoughts. She can't bring herself to think optimistically, can't hope for a happy ending she's not sure the world provides any more.

Not after everything.

"Daryl's always careful, they probably had to hole up somewhere until danger passed."

The words are as much for Maggie's own worries as they are to soothe the frown Carol can't shake from her face. She's in the kitchen, methodically washing silverware as the younger woman dries. The missing recruiters are a shadow on every conversation she has, and there's a relief in the fact Maggie isn't pretending to talk about something else.

Her platitudes are like a time machine, and for a moment Maggie is Lori and Dale and the face of everyone who assured Carol that they would find her little girl.

Still, she can't bring herself to respond with anything more than murmured agreement and Maggie sets aside the fork she'd been polishing and reaches out for Carol's shoulder.

"We find each other, Carol. It's what we do."

There's a highlight reel of reunions playing in Carol's head. Of hugs and hostages and friends she'd thought were lost. She closes her eyes and tries to believe what Maggie tells her, tries to imagine the commotion she'd hear from the gates if they turned up one afternoon like everything was normal.

It doesn't make anything feel better.

* * *

Eleven days after they left, the search party returns empty handed.

She's never seen Glenn look so defeated, and there's an anger in the set of Michonne's shoulders she's never seen before. Morgan is as calm as ever when he recounts their trip to Rick, but even he seems puzzled by the total lack of clues they'd found.

There had been nothing out there. Nothing that obviously diverted Daryl and Aaron from their intended path, no broken down car or evidence of a fight. Everything had been completely as expected, and they have no better idea what happened than before the second run went out.

Nobody wants to say it out loud, but Carol can feel the doubt beginning to break through the confident optimism they all spout.

Daryl and Aaron aren't just late.

* * *

"I had the most ridiculous thought the other night," Eric says conversationally, curled in his living room recliner.

They're eighty-six days gone, and Carol lounges on the couch, her feet on the coffee table. The dinner dates have gotten more frequent, since Eric broke their silence, and now he talks about Aaron most of the evenings they spend together. It should depress her, but in a way, learning more about the man who'd befriended Daryl makes her feel closer to the one she's missing.

"Daryl's sexy," he sounds almost mad about it, which makes Carol snort just slightly. "He's got that whole sexy-loner-biker thing working for him. And Aaron's the straight-laced but secretly incredibly intense and a little bit broody type. He seems so friendly easygoing, but there's so much more going on…" He trails off a moment, wistful before he visibly shakes himself out of the tangent and returns to his point. "Anyway, I was thinking, maybe they just decided to fuck each other and are out there somewhere living their new gay love for each other and not coming back because they don't want to face me."

There's no recrimination in his tone, and Carol can tell that Eric doesn't have any actual doubts as to Aaron's fidelity.

"Maybe they just fell in love."

Carol tries to imagine that, tries to picture Aaron showing Daryl the tenderness she'd seen him display towards Eric. She tries to imagine Daryl opening up, Daryl letting someone in and the pair of them accidentally finding love when they weren't trying to.

It's looking just a shade too familiar for her to handle, and Eric's wistful laughter shakes the thought away.

"I was thinking about that, and I won't deny that there were… aspects of it I enjoyed thinking about. A lot." He giggles, and even though her eyes are closed Carol can feel his suggestive eyebrow wiggle. "I kept thinking that at least, if that were true, then Aaron's alive out there somewhere… and happy. And that would make it okay."

The silence that falls on them isn't comfortable anymore, and Eric clears his throat after a beat.

"It's really hot to think about, though."

* * *

That night, she dreams of the barn.

When the monster wearing her baby's face stumbles out, there are no arms to hold her back and Carol flies towards her daughter.

She wakes up as her fingertips brush against her matted hair.

* * *

Michonne takes it harder than Carol would have expected.

Not that she thought her heartless, or ambivalent to Daryl, she'd just not taken a lot of time to consider their friendship. The realization that Michonne is devastated by his loss brings with it a mix of comfort and jealousy. Carol knows the latter is completely unfounded, knows there was nothing romantic between the pair of them, but sometimes the uglier emotions are easier to grasp than the painful ones.

Still, it surprises her when, on the one hundredth night since he left, Michonne joins her on the porch in the middle of the night. They sit silently, staring out at the street in their pajamas, side by side in the autumn night and Carol knows they're both thinking about the same man.

"Deanna wants to start a new recruiting team." Michonne's voice is so calm, as if she's asking about a recipe and Carol wonders how she manages it when her look is anything but. "It's getting colder, winter will be here soon, there might be people out there who need the shelter Alexandria can offer."

It all makes sense, of course, but something about replacing them, about acknowledging it like this feels far too final and she can't help but scowl. What right does Deanna have?

Every right, she knows.

"We have a recruiting team," Carol says, her voice harsh.

The vitriol only makes Michonne smile, and she folds her arms across her knees and looks to the gate. "That's exactly what Rick told her."

* * *

At night, she wishes he were dead.

She's wrapped up in her comforter, head resting on the pillow she'd taken from Daryl's bed even though she'd washed his bedding shortly after he'd left and any lingering scent is just in her imagination. A chill is setting in and her days keep getting interrupted by thoughts of whether or not he'd found a jacket to wear, wherever he was.

Dead is something she knows how to deal with. Carol knows how to mourn, knows how to react with grief, knows what it feels like to lose another piece of her heart to an unexpected death. She would have cried for him, would have sorted his things and given them out to those that could use them the most. She would have pieced up Daryl Dixon and tucked him away into the darkest places of her heart.

If he had died, his room wouldn't be a mausoleum to hope that no one will admit they harbor.

* * *

In the springtime, Morgan and Sasha go on their first recruiting run.

Chosen for their skill more than their winning interpersonal skills, Carol can't help but think they're not the best representation of what Alexandria has to offer. Neither of them have Aaron's nonthreatening likability or Daryl's no-nonsense honesty. Still, Deanna hadn't been wrong, there are people out there that may need Alexandria and as she lays on Eric's couch in their shared misery, she knows it's what Daryl would have wanted.

He believed in this place, believed in bringing people in, in trying.

She just isn't sure she has the energy to do it, yet.

* * *

On the first anniversary, they hold a memorial. Nobody says it outright, but it's clear that any lingering hope has died with the changing of the seasons.

They don't give them graves, but Eric cries into Carol's shoulder like somehow this arbitrary ceremony makes everything final. He needs this, she knows, needs to start convincing himself that Aaron is gone and if a few of them speaking about their memories is going to help him, then Carol will stand at his side.

She knows it's not enough to convince her own heart to let go.

Glenn speaks on behalf of their group, giving a heartfelt summary of the complicated man and trying to put words to what he'd meant to them all. Carol listens almost impassively, thinking abstractly of how much Glenn reminds her of Hershel in those moments.

Afterwards, as she stands with Eric and listens to him accept condolences, it hits her like a punch to the gut that she feels more like a widow in this moment than she did when her actual husband died.

When Ed had died, she had felt free.

Now, she feels like half of her is missing.

* * *

"She needs her own room."

Carol nods, wishing Rick would stop trying to justify something she's already agreed to. "I know she does, you're right."

He still looks unsure, something like guilt in his eyes as he glances towards the stairs. He's a little bit unkempt, but nothing like the times grief had consumed him. Still, he seems to need Carol's blessing, her permission to do something that just makes sense and she steels herself to smile and lay her hand on his arm.

"Daryl would have wanted Judith to take his room, Rick." She sounds impressively steady, making it through his name without even a hitch. "It's time."

She excuses herself while he and Carl pack things up, knowing that she wouldn't be able to maintain her front of strength when faced with the final reminders of him being boxed away and moved to the attic. Somewhere in the last year she'd started pretending for them too, started wearing a mask to her family as much as the rest of Alexandria.

She's slipping away from herself, without him here to ground her.


	4. III

The barn haunts her more than he does.

She wonders who she would be if Sophia had never been inside. If she'd disappeared from the woods and they'd never found a shred of evidence, would Carol have been able to go on? Was it the closure, however terrible, that had kept her from coming apart at her very soul?

Uncertainty holds her back in ways she can barely see.

* * *

That fall, Morgan and Sasha mutually resign from recruiting.

In six months they hadn't brought anyone in, and had nearly been killed by most of the groups they approached. Sasha's frustrated and Morgan's restless and when they step down everyone is a little bit relieved.

The partnerships start rotating, then. Different combinations of people, trying to find the right mix of personalities to be the face of their settlement. Rosita seems a good fit, but there's trouble finding someone who can work alongside her and strike the right balance.

On the second anniversary, she sets out with Tara at her side and Carol tries to imagine what would have happened if either of them had approached them that day a different barn had changed her life.

* * *

"I can't remember his voice."

She's on Eric's couch, as usual, their weekly dinners having become ritual. It's been months since they've spoken about Daryl or Aaron, though their absence always hovers at the edges of conversation like spectres of unspoken heartbreak.

"It's weird," Eric admits, though he sounds more puzzled than anything else. "I remember his smell and his laugh and the way his lips felt against mine, but when I try and remember something as simple as his everyday voice, I draw a blank."

"I loved Daryl." Her words don't feel like an admission, and Eric just laughs like she's saying something obvious. "I loved him and I never told him and I don't know what his lips felt like and now Judith sleeps in his room and he's just gone."

Something snaps inside of her, then, and they're not the first tears she's cried over him but they're shaking her body like the grief will overwhelm her if it doesn't come on. Carol's dimly aware of Eric abandoning his seat to pull her into his arms, holding her loosely and murmuring something she knows is meant to be soothing.

He doesn't assure her that Daryl knew how she felt, he doesn't tell her that Daryl surely returned her feelings. Eric doesn't have that kind of comfort to offer and as Carol lets her tears soak into his sweater, she knows that fear of those platitudes has kept her together for as long as she's managed.

And then she's telling him everything. From Ed to Sophia to the prison and Karen and David and Lizzie and Mika and Terminus and Atlanta and everything she hasn't talked about in years. Secrets she's kept buried come out with choked sobs to someone she only knows through shared pain.

Eric does his best, listens and soothes and tries to help her through the unexpected rush of feelings. Even though she's beyond grateful, there's a part of Carol that curses him because he isn't who she wanted to tell these things to.

She should have told Daryl so many things, and now she never can.

* * *

It's easier, after that.

Not very much, but enough that Carol starts to feel like maybe she's going to be a complete person again someday. Her smiles are a little less forced, her sleep a little more consistent. She still dreams of barns, of everyone they've lost and found and the two people they never will, but sometimes she dreams of other things instead. The look on his face when he'd seen her outside of Terminus, the feeling of his hair under her fingertips that day on the road, the sound of his steady breathing as they'd watched the snow settle over Alexandria.

Easier, but nowhere near okay.

* * *

"Carol! Carol wake up!"

The knocking at her door is frantic, and Carl's voice is full of something she can't quite identify. She rouses quickly, pulling on her robe and opening the door to find the young man's face shining with an eagerness that makes him look like the little boy she'd first met.

"Rosita and Tara just got back and they have something you need to see!" He's tugging on her arm, pulling her down the stairs even as she hastily belts her robe and stumbles after him.

Rosita's seated on the couch, the dirt from the road all over her but a brilliant smile on her face. Tara's perched above her on the arm, equally dirty and exhausted but glowing with something unidentifiable. Rick and Michonne are both there, staring at something on the coffee table and Carol's breath catches in her throat as Carl all but pushes her over to see what it is.

Laying on the smudged glass surface is a crossbow bolt.

It's scuffed and clearly worn by the weather, the orange plastic fletching barely holding on to the shaft.

"We found it about four days north of here, embedded in a tree trunk" Tara tells her, excitement lacing her voice.

"It's not much, I know," Rosita is a little more cautious than her recruiting partner, but she can't hide the happiness the discovery has brought her.

"It's the first sign we've had in three years," Rick says firmly. "We have a lead on what direction they were in."

They're making plans already, discussing who to send out and trying to best gauge the amount of time the bolt had been exposed to the elements. Their voices blend together as Carol reaches for the bolt and brushes her fingertip against it, wishing for a rush of recognition that never comes. The weight of the shaft is wrong, the contour of the fletching is different and she knows with a certainty that feels like lead in her gut that this isn't what they think it is.

She doesn't have it in her to break their hearts by telling them it's not Daryl's bolt.

* * *

The false hope of the clue sustains her family for a few weeks, but when nothing comes of it they drop the subject even more firmly than they had before this discovery.

She tells Eric, of course, and he just sighs and asks her if she's completely sure.

Lying to him would be so easy, and Carol knows that any flicker of doubt will haul him back to the days of waiting up at night listening for a motorcycle in the distance.

"I'm sure."

* * *

Rick figures it out eventually, Carol can tell by the set of his jaw and the tense way he looks at her when he thinks she won't notice. It takes her back to a cul de sac in Georgia and a station wagon's locked door and this time, at least she's actually betrayed his trust.

He never mentions anything.

* * *

By the time five years have passed, Carol has stopped her weekly dinners with Eric. Rosita and Tara have been recruiting together longer than Daryl and Aaron ever did, and somewhere along the way they dropped "team two" from their moniker.

She thinks, sometimes, that no one else remembers them. Not like she does, like she always will.

The barn comes to her less and less.

* * *

Winter of year seven, the walls are breached.

Carol fights alongside everyone and when they're standing amongst the bodies of the dead, victorious despite their losses, she doesn't tell anyone about the scratch on her arm. She lets Carl hug her, listens to Michonne and Rick discuss the casualties and kisses Judith on the cheek.

She goes to Eric, as the fever sets in.

He lets her lay on his couch, a tense look on his face despite the tears he tries to blink away. She knows it's unfair to make him watch her pass all on his own, but she doesn't want anyone else to see her like this, doesn't want to admit to anyone else how ready she is for it to be her time.

"I'll know, Eric. I'll finally know."

"Know what?"

"When I get to whatever comes after, I'll finally know if Daryl's dead."

He cries then, for the uncertainty she's never quite been able to live with and when she finally slips away, there's just a hint of a smile on her face.

* * *

 _The barn doors open, and the arms that wrap around you are skinny and squeeze tight. There's a rainbow inside and you know this hug, you've felt these arms every day for a decade and while it's been that long since the last time she held on to you, there's nothing unfamiliar about it._

 _You stand there in sunlight, her hair soft under your lips and her face pushed against your breastbone. It's everything you've missed since that day on the highway and anything else is forgotten for the length of heartbeats._

 _She pulls away, her little hands grasping yours as she tells you there's someone else waiting._

 _You turn, and the blue that you see is bright enough to make you feel like you can fly._

* * *

AN: Thank you to everyone who read this. I have some thoughts about specific choices I made going onto tumblr in a couple of minutes, if anyone is interesting. And massive thank you to Lamport for the support!


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